Key Contests between India and England Test series in 2018

The last time India won a Test series in England was in 2007, where after escaping an inevitable defeat at Lords due to a rain interruption saw the match drawn. At Trent Bridge on the back of a famous bowling effort spearheaded by Zaheer Khan, India romped home to a famous overseas test win and drew the final test at ‘The Oval’ to secure a historic series win with Rahul Dravid as the captain.

The tour of 2011 saw India travel to England as the number one ranked Test team in the world but was soon brought down crashing to reality as they lost miserably 0-4 to England. The 2014 series started off on an encouraging note with a draw at Trent Bridge and a famous win at Lords but soon faltered over and ended up losing the series 1-3.

India will look at the 2018 series for redemption and will look to lay down the marker as the number ranked test team. The series will be ultimately decided by some key individual battles and we will look at some of them.

---

#1 James Anderson to Virat Kohli

It will be fascinating to see how Kohli goes about tackling the swing of Anderson. With Anderson eyeing on Glenn Mcgrath’s record of most number of wickets by a fast bowler, he will look to this five matches’ Test series to inch further to that milestone and what will be a better way than starting the mission by targeting the Indian captain. In the 2014 series, Anderson had dismissed Kohli four out of a possible 10 times.

Anderson brought Kohli forward into the drive and had him dangling his bat outside the off stump, with no clue whether he should play or leave the red duke ball. This resulted in him being trapped in front of the wicket or induced an edge. Kohli would have looked at that footage and have had surely identified his mistakes and will be looking to take on Anderson from the very outset. This might well turn out to be the contest of the summer and well define the outcome of the series because if captain Kohli is in good nick, the team ends up doing well.

#2 Ishant Sharma to the English top order

With Bhuveneshwar Kumar ruled out for the first three tests, the onus lies on Ishant Sharma to spearhead the pace attack. Bhuvi’s absence will be a big blow but the top-ranked test team should look at their options to maximize the sting in the attack.

The outcome of the test series will depend on how Ishant bowls to the England top order. He would like to replicate his Lord's performance in 2014 in the upcoming series.The Indian team will hope him to maximize the experience of playing in county cricket and trouble the English batsmen more often.

A big task awaits Umesh Yadav as he will be sharing the new ball with Ishant. Umesh has had a fantastic IPL individually often striking at the start with his spot on lengths and searing pace. It will be expected of him to maintain those tight lines and lengths over a period with consistency and support Ishant.

#3 Ashwin to the English batsmen

Ravi Ashwin could end up as the lone spinner in the final eleven and will be looking forward to plying his trade in overseas conditions and prove his doubters wrong. Statistics might not tell the whole story but give some insight into the story. Of the 300 test wickets taken by Ashwin, around 250 of them have been snared in the Indian sub-continent.

He will look forward to adding to his tally of overseas wickets and produce an impressive display. On Indian wickets, Ashwin has used the off stump and middle line effectively but he will have to be patient in the English conditions as the wickets do not wear and tear like they do in India.